Many observers felt South Africa should have hosted the 2006 World Cup, but with stadiums packed to capacity and millions of fans watching matches on big screens, Germany has more than proved it deserved the right.
After a month of sun-kissed games played to one full house after another, it is hard to recall that Germany was awarded the right to host the tournament in a storm of controversy.
The crucial vote in July 2000 was overshadowed by a voting scandal.
Oceania delegate Charles Dempsey cited "intolerable pressure" for his decision to abstain in the final round of voting in Zurich, giving Germany a 12-11 victory over South Africa.
Dempsey had been expected to vote for the African bid. In the event of a 12-12 tie, FIFA President Sepp Blatter would have made the final decision and he had heavily favoured holding the World Cup in Africa for the first time.
Instead, the magnetic personality of Franz Beckenbauer swung the vote in Germany's favour, which as West Germany had already hosted the event in 1974.
Beckenbauer, a World Cup winner as a player and coach, argued that Germany would prove itself to be a unified country at ease with itself, capped by the staging of the final in the once-divided city of Berlin.
Germany has emphatically delivered on that promise.
"It will be difficult to organise a better World Cup than Germany has done," said Lennart Johansson, the Swede who heads European football body UEFA and is also a FIFA vice-president.
Beckenbauer himself has hailed the fan areas set up to show matches on big screens as the big success of the tournament.
"The big winner of the World Cup has been the fan. The organised Fan Miles and also the impromptu ones have exceeded all expectations," he said.
The abiding image of the World Cup may well be the scenes at Berlin's Fan Mile, which was extended to accommodate 900,000 people when the host nation played.
The progress of Jurgen Klinsmann's young team to the semi-finals undoubtedly added to the happy atmosphere.
The organisation of the month-long, 64-match event was not completely trouble-free.